The Navy Just Sent Its First-Ever F-35 Carrier To The Pacific

The Navy made history on Monday by putting to sea for the first time ever an aircraft carrier with F-35B jets — and by deploying them in the Pacific, it’s a message China and North Korea are sure to hear loud and clear.

The Marine Corps’s Fighter Attack Squadron 121 deployed aboard the USS Wasp, a smaller-deck aircraft carrier that used to operate harrier jump jets and helicopters before getting special modifications to field the F-35.

“This is a historic deployment,” said Col. Tye R. Wallace, 31st MEU Commanding Officer in a Navy press release. “The F-35B is the most capable aircraft ever to support a Marine rifleman on the ground.”

U.S. Marine Corp/Cpl. Bernadette Wildes

An F-35B Lighitng II performs deck landing qualifications on the USS Wasp (LHD-1), March 5, 2018. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 embarked a detachment of F-35Bs on the USS Wasp for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit’s Spring Patrol 2018, marking the first operational deployment of the F-35B with a MEU.

The deployment marks the culmination of years of planning. Since its inception, the F-35 has been designed with the idea of accommodating short takeoff, vertical landing variants. Initially, the design compromises forced by the massive tail fan and unique capabilities caused complications, compromises, and long and expensive delays.

The result is a stealth fighter/bomber/reconnaissance jet well suited to the Asia-Pacific region, which U.S. adversaries like China and North Korea will be sure to recognize.

“You’re about to put for the first time ever fifth-generation fighters on a ship at sea and put it into a highly contested area that is fraught with geopolitical risk and controversy and tensions,” retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. David Berke, a former F-35B squadron commander, previously told Business Insider.

“The implications of a fifth-generation airplane being in [the Pacific] is impossible to overstate,” he added. “They’re going to provide [a] capability that nobody knows exists yet.”